New Zealand’s Belinda George Architects is a firm that “strives to achieve simple, functional, sustainable and, above all, beautiful solutions”. Simple, yes, which draws your attention to the details, like the views from the perfectly positioned windows. I LOVE huge sliding windows that blend the outdoors and indoors. Makes me hate (even more) that I live so far north where you would only be able to make use of such features for a few months out of the year.

To ease you back into a thankfully short work week (those that celebrated Labour Day that is), here is a restored Victorian villa on the British island of Guernsey that is bathed in white. Simply beautiful and totally cozy.

Hi! After enjoying all the pet photos on your blog, I couldn’t resist. I had to send you a couple myself. These are my two Frenchies. They think the couch is their bed even though they have dog beds all over the house. And I don’t normally let them on the antique (white!) chair but I couldn’t resist posing him on it for a photo.
– Alek

Tonight I was getting caught up on all of your fabulous postings and had to write — I just love your “creatures on furniture” series and thought I’d send you both a few of my pups, Bear and Daisy — just for fun.
– Myla

I am a 43 years old nurse educator and manager, living with two cats in Istanbul. I used to have an other tom cat who was died last November in his age of 14. I decided not to have a cat at the beginning. I moved my home to the apartment just above my previous one in last July. Meanwhile I was looking at your photos with cats. I told myself I need a cat in my new flat. I was surfing the web side about free pet adoption. I found a nice lady. She is a Van swimming cat. One is blue and other is green. She is not % percent but still, she had two colored eyes. The advertisement about her, says one year old pregnant van cat. I decided to adopt her. In next telephone call, her owner told me she delivered 1 kitten. 2 days later They were in my apartment. Now the kitten is 2,5 months old. By the way I am living a very modest furnished apartment. I am still working on it. I am sending a few photos about my girls first. They were taken my Nokia mobile phone.
– Sibel

Our whippet rufus will come running everytime i take out the camera to photograph something in our apartment, so i have so many pictures of him posing on our furniture. Here are a few – love the blog!
– Mette

Since I love your blog so much, and since you guys love dogs so much I wanted to send you pictures of my adorable dogs in LA! I hope you and your readers love the pictures as much as I do.
– Aimee

I saw your “Monday’s pets on furniture” feature and I thought I’d send you a picture of The Mini, a 5 year-old cat with a big attitude. He is the star of my own blog every Tuesday as I publish a special feature called “Mini Mardi” (Mini’s Tuesdays). He loves to take dramatic poses on my green velvet wing chair from Bombay (Bombay.ca).
– Martine from Montréal

Every week I see the photos and think that I really need to send some to you! Back in the days when he was allowed on the furniture, Ridley made himself strangely comfortable.
– Nina

Here is our little puppers Iggy (or more formally Iggy Juilius Huggleman) hanging out in his favorite spot on the back of the sofa. I think it makes him feel big.
– Morgan

Because trimming this and stripping this took me the whole freaking weekend, I have SO many things to get done today before I go back to work tomorrow. And this being a holiday and all, I think I will call it a day with this post. Happy labour day!

We’re all about inspiring creative and beautiful design here at DTI, and the website This Ain’t No Disco (it’s where we work) is a favourite of mine (see here and here). As both Jo and I work for our respective governments, we spend our weekdays in less-than-inspiring offices. This website always has me imagining being able to work in a space that isn’t filled with mismatched half-walls and industrial tacky carpet. Here are workspaces that would inspire the crap out of me. The first is the office of Pride & Glory Interactive, based in Poland (designed by Morpho Studio and photographed by Magdalena Pacana), and the second is Maycreate, based in Chattanooga Tennessee.